this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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Microsoft's many Outlooks are confusing users and employees (www.theregister.com)
submitted 6 days ago by tinosaurier@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] radiohead37@lemmynsfw.com 37 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Windows having Settings and Control Panel. It is just an unmanageable bloat of legacy code.

[–] cheers_queers@lemm.ee 14 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I use control panel enough that i would be seriously pissed if they removed it. Why is it considered bloat?

[–] Pheonixdown@lemm.ee 45 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Settings is the bloat. Control Panel reigns supreme.

[–] swizzlestick@lemmy.zip 10 points 6 days ago

Half the shit I actually want I just run directly these days, rather than nosing through either.

  • ncpa.cpl
  • diskmgmt.msc
  • devmgmt.msc
  • control userpasswords2
  • cmd
  • mstsc
  • regedit
  • taskmgr

Just to name a few.

[–] Romkslrqusz@lemm.ee 5 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Settings is more accessible to casual users.

[–] DontMakeMoreBabies@lemm.ee 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Fuck. Casual. Users.

Edit: To be clear "make it easier for casual users" is some MBA bullshit. The casual user adds nothing to technology - when those retards get involved, things enshitify because they let it happen.

[–] BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Causal users shouldn't be fucking around in settings since I can attest with factual data that 0% of casual users actually know what the fuck they are doing.

So delete Settings and only allow Control Panel

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Except when the setting they need isn't in Settings. Then it's a wild goose chase.

In fact, it's often a wild goose chase even if it is in Settings, because the question then is where did Microsoft decide to hide it in this most recent update?

The thing everyone misses which was Control Panel's greatest strength, however, was that vendors could add their own .cpl extensions to it. So settings for your specific hardware could go there. (Yes, this was abused by-and-large by some vendors just like the system tray, but that's not the point.) Literally all of your settings and configuration stuff could go in one place. Even if a user did not know exactly where, at least they had a consistent place to start looking.

That all ended with Windows 2000/XP and got worse with 8/10/11.

Now we have this:

"I want to change the behavior of Windows feature X."

Spin the wheel and guess!

  • Is it located in Settings?
  • Is it located in Control Panel?
  • Is there a category in Settings where it totally should be, and any reasonable person would expect it to be, but it's not there? Surprise! It's in Control Panel anyway because Microsoft was too lazy to migrate it to Settings.
  • Is it in both Settings and Control panel?
  • Is it lurking in the Notification Area?
  • Or is it hidden in Group Policy Management instead? Oops, too bad you bought the home edition of Windows.

Etc.

Control panel may have been clunky, especially for frequently accessed settings, but at least it was unified.

[–] based_raven@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Also, when you use the built in windows search to search for an installed program, except it doesn't find it, but gives you web results instead. Microsoft needs to take a seriously massive step back and realise how much they've fucked up this basic stuff.

[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I'm positive that's deliberate, though, because they're desperate to drive traffic to Bing by any means necessary.

[–] Prok@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Until they call me because the setting they need isn't in settings....

[–] Romkslrqusz@lemm.ee 4 points 6 days ago

In that case, they wouldn’t have found it in Control Panel anyways.

Otherwise, they would have opened Control Panel.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

They better not touch my damn control panel. I'll fight a microsoft systems engineer. They can be added to the list.

[–] baggins@lemmy.ca 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Once they drop the real control panel all the useful / advanced configuration will be hidden behind a PowerShell cmdlet you have to Google to find out about! Very streamlined and intuitive.

Settings app: "A network without a gateway? Bullshit mate lemme on the internet."

[–] swizzlestick@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 days ago

It's utter bollocks. It used to be the OEM crap that had to be removed or clean installed over. Now you have to spend time unfucking fresh installs.

My 11 image is just about usable, but only after a lot of gutting, reg entries, powershell scripts and openshell.

The railroading to sign in with an MS account has become worse too, but still just about bypassable.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 days ago

Once they drop the real control panel all the useful / advanced configuration will be hidden behind a PowerShell cmdlet you have to Google to find out about!

Ah yes, just like MacOS's pmset

[–] based_raven@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

I'd rather they remove all the new shit like "Settings" and just keep all the stuff they've had for god knows how many years. Control Panel ftw.